


Hearts and Hands and Destiny

by ssswampert



Category: RWBY
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Gen, Post Vol 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 11:18:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10555422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssswampert/pseuds/ssswampert
Summary: He says it so matter-of-factly it feels like Jaune has been kicked in the jaw by the Nucklavee.“Yes,” Jaune says, meeting his eyes. “From her partner and her team leader, yes. And I’m so sorry.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> remember that time i said i wasn't an angst writer?
> 
> well i'm still not because writing this hurt and i don't wanna ever do it again if i can help it
> 
> also remember that time i said that everything i ever wrote would be "everyone lives au" well it still will be. this just wouldn't leave until i wrote it.

“Wait, it might be this way,” Ruby says, pointing at the map of the town in Nora’s hands and then the direction they’d just come.

“No way, it’s that way,” Nora replies, gesturing to the left of where the four of them stood. Ren and Jaune exchange glances, and Ren looks around the town square they’ve stopped in. Maybe there would be someone to help them out.

“It’s this way!” Ruby says again, louder. Nora argues. Jaune can’t help but hang his head. This was his idea, and tension was so thick that Ruby and Nora, who never fought with each other, were all but shouting at each other.

“I’m sorry, what are you looking for?” Someone stops and peers over their map. He pushes glasses up his nose.

“Are you a local?” Ren asks, cutting Nora and Ruby both before they can drag this unsuspecting person into their argument. He nods. “Okay, can you tell us where the Nikos family lives?”

“Oh, sure,” the man says. “You go this way and hang a left at the stop sign and it’s the last house on that street.” He gestures. “Can’t miss it. Are you fans of their daughter?” he asks.

“You could say that,” Ren replies. Jaune eyes the cobblestone road. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem.” The man smiles at them and starts on his way again.

“I guess we should, uh,” Jaune’s try at enthusiasm falls flat. Ren touches his arm and looks up at him sympathetically. Jaune’s heart hurts. Maybe they shouldn’t…

“We don’t have to do this,” Ren says gently. “We could wait until—”

Jaune shakes his head sharply. “Pyrrha’s parents have waited long enough. We should, we should...” His eyes sting with tears. He squeezes them shut and wills his face to stop burning with the frustrated blushing that always comes when he cries.

“Okay,” Ren says, and rubs his arm soothingly. “We will.”

When Jaune opens his eyes, Ruby and Nora are looking at him too, twin expressions of concern on their faces. He takes a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

The trek to the street in question isn’t very long, but it feels like a death sentence.

And the further down it they walk—to the house at the end, which looks deceptively _normal_ compared to what Pyrrha had told them about her family life—the more Jaune notices his shoulders tensing.

Ren takes his hand, briefly, and squeezes it, then lets go. Jaune relaxes his shoulders. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Ren asks softly.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t want to do it. “It’s our responsibility as her teammates and her friends.” Ren doesn’t seem convinced, but lets it go.

The Nikos’ front door isn’t ornate or fancy, and it doesn’t even have one of those gigantic brass knockers Jaune was hoping for, but it’s still the most intimidating thing he’s ever seen. He takes a deep breath. Nora takes his hand this time and squeezes it tight, but unlike Ren she doesn’t let it go.

Jaune lifts his hand and knocks.

The biggest, burliest man Jaune has ever seen opens the door and peers down at all of them with Pyrrha’s green eyes. He lifts a bushy red eyebrow. “If you’re fans of my daughter come back another time,” he snaps. “She’s not here.” He starts to push the door shut again.

“Actually, sir,” Ren says quickly. “We’re friends of hers from Beacon.”

Pyrrha’s dad pauses, then pulls the door open again. He looks above all of their heads, and Jaune feels his heart sink. He knows who’s being looked for. “Come in, I suppose.” He pulls the door open wider and gestures them in.

The entryway is plastered with framed newspaper clippings. Jaune barely has time to take any of them in—except that in the pictures on all of them Pyrrha stands tall and proud—before they’re swept to a sitting room.

There is a tiny, frail, fair woman with fiery hair sitting on a delicate couch, clutching at an equally delicate teacup and saucer. “Dimitra,” Pyrrha’s dad starts softly. “These are her friends,” he says. Her eyes, gold and wide, flick over all of them and then behind, and Jaune’s heart sinks further.

“Oh, no,” she says. The cup starts to tremble against the saucer. “Athanasius, why isn’t she with them?”

Jaune swallows hard. Ren takes his other hand, and Nora squeezes his hand again. “That’s why we’re here,” Jaune finds himself saying. He looks around the room again, looks at the trophy cases and shadow boxes and he _aches_ for his partner’s parents. He aches, because as far as he can see, Pyrrha was all they had.

Pyrrha’s mother makes a small, pained noise in her throat and sets the teacup and saucer on the small table next to her.

“We’re her teammates,” Ren says, gesturing to the three of them linked by hands and hearts and destiny. “And her friends.” He gestures to include Ruby.

“Dimitra,” Pyrrha’s dad says, voice trembling. He comes around the four of them and joins her on the couch, pulling her into his side.

Jaune’s eyes fill with tears. “She,” he starts haltingly. “When Beacon fell, she,” his voice wavers and cracks.

“She saved all of us,” Ruby says quietly. “She gave her life to save all of us.”

What goes through Jaune’s mind is _If I’d been better_ , but he bites it back. This isn’t about him. “Everyone loved her,” he says instead. _I loved her_ , he doesn’t say. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Dimitra hides her face in her hands with a wail and presses herself further into Athanasius’ side. Athanasius clutches his wife tighter to himself and stares at the four of them, face stony. Normally, Jaune would be afraid of that sort of expression. It should have been terrifying—and then Pyrrha’s dad’s eyes fill with tears and spill over.

“So you’re telling us,” he starts, voice shaking, “that our daughter is dead.” He says it so matter-of-factly it feels like Jaune has been kicked in the jaw by the Nucklavee.

“Yes,” Jaune says, meeting his eyes. “From her partner and her team leader, yes. And I’m so sorry.” Dimitra lets out a strangled sob, and Athanasius buries his nose into her hair. “She was amazing,” he says. He can’t stop himself. “From day one she wanted to help me be the best I could be, and she believed in me.” He feels his own tears fall. Not ones he’s held back, because he has mourned time and time again over the partner he’s lost, but fresh ones from a wound not healed yet. “She was the first person to do that. Believe in me.”

He’s not sure this is helping; in fact, he’s terrified it’s making it worse, because Athanasius’ arms tighten around Dimitra.

Ruby rests her hand on his back. “We really are sorry,” she says. Her voice shakes, just barely, like she’s holding back everything she’s got. “I wish I had more to say,” she says. “We should let you mourn in peace.”

“No, stay. Sit.” Dimitra surprises all four of them. Her voice is thick and choked. They sit, the four of them squished together on the couch opposite a heavy wooden coffee table. On the shelf immediately to Jaune’s left sits a trophy engraved _Pyrrha Nikos – Mistral Tournament 1_ _st_ _place_ and the year before they started at Beacon. The ones next to it go back three more years.

At Dimitra’s insistence, they talk.

They tell stories from at school—how Pyrrha had terrible aim with anything that wasn’t metal, the incident where they tried to make Ren a birthday cake in the fall when it wasn’t Ren’s birthday until the spring, how Pyrrha let Ruby stand on her shoulders more than once just to see how long they could keep their balance.

They hear childhood stories—how Pyrrha cut her own hair when she was seven and they had to nearly shave her head to get it all the same length, how they discovered her semblance, her attempt at a fancy dinner when she was ten that ended up just being potato chips and water on their best china.

Slowly, tears turn to laughter. They learn more about Pyrrha than they had ever gotten to know.

The day wanes. Dimitra smiles softly when a story of Jaune’s is interrupted by a yawn. “You should get going before you fall asleep,” she says. “Thank you for coming.”

Athanasius walks them to the door. “Thank you for telling us,” he says. “It means more than you could know.” He puts a hand on Jaune’s shoulder and squeezes, then does the same to Ren. “Keep in touch,” he says.

“We will, sir,” Jaune says, nodding once. His heart feels heavier and lighter all at once. He feels like this has helped him—and Ruby and Ren and Nora, too—to heal.

He feels as though, for once, he has made the right decision.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me [on tumblr](http://avpdjaunearc.tumblr.com)


End file.
